


Bloodlines

by peachsocks



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Lovers to enemies to lovers, M/M, Panic Attacks, Post-The Blood of Olympus (Heroes of Olympus), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, and ignoring trials of apollo, but they're never not together tbh, oh if i had to classify the percabeth, they're just going through it, wait thalia nico percy are a little big three family? always have been, we're working through trauma
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-10
Updated: 2021-02-25
Packaged: 2021-03-16 04:34:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 14,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29326326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peachsocks/pseuds/peachsocks
Summary: After a year of avoiding Camp Half-Blood (and his friends, and everyone, and everything) in the aftermath the Giant War, Percy returns. He quickly realizes that the gods never change, running from the past never works, and family is the one thing that might make all of the nonsense worth it.
Relationships: Annabeth Chase/Percy Jackson, Nico di Angelo & Thalia Grace & Percy Jackson, Nico di Angelo/Will Solace, Percy Jackson & Will Solace
Comments: 6
Kudos: 72





	1. A Horse Attempts a Warm Welcome. (Chiron’s a Jerk.)

**Author's Note:**

> I reread pjo and hoo after like ten years and then banged out this ~60k fic in a week. Full disclosure I haven't read all of toa so I'm ignoring all of that. Also, I really don't know what's considered accepted fanon here lol (I'm usually a marvel writer! anyone who's interested, check out my [marvel ao3](https://archiveofourown.org/users/peterparkr/pseuds/peterparkr)) but I just think percy and annabeth (and honestly everyone) should be a little more messed up & tired after, you know, everything

Percy hadn’t been back to camp in almost a year.

It didn’t  _ sound _ that bad. He’d never been a full-time camper. There were usually year-long stretches between his summers at camp. 

But he lived close enough that he could easily visit on an odd weekend or two. This year he’d declined every invitation. Like so many other things, he hadn’t realized he’d been avoiding it until Annabeth had pointed it out. By then, it had become an almost insurmountable barrier in his head. 

His hands shook as he opened the passenger door of his mom’s car. She offered him an encouraging smile because she knew, even without him explicitly saying it, that being here was a big deal. His mom always knew things, a motherly Spidey-sense, but this time he hadn’t exactly made it hard for her to figure out. 

She leaned across the dash and squeezed his hand before he left the car. “You’ve got this.”

It was embarrassing that she felt the need to say it. Of course he had this. He was Percy Jackson. He’d fought Gods, Titans, and Giants. He could definitely walk into the place that had been his home-away-from-home since he was 12 years old. 

Sometimes, he hated being Percy Jackson. 

He forced himself to smile and wave, but his mom didn’t pull away. She’d probably wait until he disappeared beyond Thalia’s Pine, just to make sure that he wouldn’t come running back.

He couldn’t blame her for being cautious. When she’d tried to drive him and Annabeth back at the beginning of the summer, he had freaked out and demanded to turn around before they got out of the city. His mom had driven just Annabeth the next day.

The border felt physical this time, like he was actually pushing through something, like maybe he’d become a little less demigod in his absence.

He had almost expected some fanfare when he made it through, but he hadn’t told anyone that he was planning on arriving today. It wasn’t like he was doing anything that warranted celebration anyway. Camp didn’t throw hero’s welcomes just for getting over some nerves.

He twisted his backpack straps around his arms and continued toward the heart of the camp. 

The place had grown up in a year—more cabins than ever before, some still under construction. His fists clenched a little bit, because this was what he’d asked for—what? Two, three years ago now? The gods never kept their promises. Always looked for loopholes.

Some of the younger campers watched as he walked by, their eyes tracking him, mouthes falling into awed little ‘o’s. He squirmed a little. It was always uncomfortable when people did that. He hadn’t experienced it in a while.

Piper was the first person to actually acknowledge him. She dropped her sword and ran over. Percy let his backpack fall from his back onto the ground before she threw her arms around him. She squeezed him tight and he squeezed back. It was kind of strange, because he’d never considered them to be close, but he supposed that the seven of them would always have an unbreakable bond.

When he pulled away, his hands were shaking again. 

Jason and Leo were behind Piper now, almost matching loopy grins on their faces. They each hugged him in turn. Nico even darted over after them, hugging him for the shortest time possible that could still be considered a hug before taking a few steps back. 

Will Solace appeared behind him.

“Hi, Percy,” he said.

Percy appreciated that he hadn’t said ‘Welcome back!’. He’d been preparing himself for that one, but no one had whipped it out so far. He wondered if Annabeth had warned people not to say it.

“Hey, Will.”

The guy rubbed his hand up and down Nico’s back before resting it on his shoulder. Percy raised his eyebrows at Nico, who turned redder than should have been possible for a human being and shrugged Will’s hand off. When Percy and Nico had IMed, the kid had been a steel trap about Will. The only things Percy knew were the few details Annabeth had told him from her visits to camp.

Like his thoughts had summoned her, she came running from the direction of the arena. Splattered mud dotted the side of her face, a big clump smeared against her hairline. Percy wondered how it had gotten there—if she’d fallen, been splashed, if Clarisse had slung it across her face.

“You made it,” she said, stepping between Nico and Piper.

One month had passed since he’d seen her last. He supposed it was nothing compared to six, but it felt longer. Possibly because he’d been asleep for most of the six month stretch. 

He’d thought a lot about how he might feel when he saw her again—if he’d break down and cry or if poetry would sprout in his head like he was a son of Apollo. 

He just felt like he was going to throw up. Not very romantic at all.

Then she threw her arms around him and everything shifted, like he’d been a little crooked and she pushed him back into optimal position. He was centered for the first time in a long time, even longer than since he’d seen her last. 

“Hi,” he whispered into her hair. His lips were touching the mud, but he didn’t care. 

She didn’t respond right away, exhaling against his shoulder. Percy tensed, afraid of what she would say next. They hadn’t been in a great place the last time he’d seen her in person. It was harder to tell what she was thinking on the phone or over IM. 

But all she said was, “I missed you.”

Jason offered him a tour of the new additions to camp. All Percy really wanted to do was put his stuff in his cabin and lie down for a while. It shouldn’t have been an ordeal to sit through the drive over here and face camp, but it had been. Unfortunately, Percy couldn’t turn Jason down. He looked too excited. Percy had a rule against kicking puppies.

He slung his backpack over his shoulder, slipped his hand through Annabeth’s, and followed him. Leo and Piper joined them and it made Percy ache for Hazel and Frank to be there, too. Besides Annabeth, they’d been the two he was closest to on the Argo II. He hadn’t heard much from them lately, but that was his own doing. It was hard with them so far away. He’d never been great at keeping in touch with people—what limited ability to focus he had was restricted to the things he could touch and see—but it had been worse than usual lately.

He tried to pay attention to Jason’s words, the proud smile on his face, as he showed off all the work he’d been doing, but the pit of anger rose again, simmering just below the surface. It wasn’t directed at Jason. He just couldn’t help but think demigods were doing all the work,  _ again _ . Building all these cabins in the hopes that the Olympians would start to respect the minor gods to stave off another war that demigods would bear the brunt of. 

The cabins got more familiar the farther they walked, until they reached the center of the Olympian cabins. The buildings looked smaller than they did in his memories, like they were miniature replicas of the ones he used to walk past every summer. 

Annabeth tapped his wrist. He looked up, found Jason smiling at him expectantly.

“Wow, they look awesome,” he said, hoping that was an appropriate response. “I can’t believe how different it is.”

Jason’s smile grew exponentially and Annabeth squeezed his hand, so he must have done alright. In fact, he was sort of killing it. He’d made it all the way across camp without any major incidents. No monsters had appeared, no gods had demanded he help them, no smoking oracles had materialized with a new quest in hand. He hadn’t even freaked out, besides a little shakiness here and there. Maybe, he could do this. All he had was a month of camp and then New Rome with Annabeth. The past would finally be behind them. For good.

He jogged over to his cabin and threw his belongings onto his bed. The space looked clean, no dust lingering on any surfaces, which meant Tyson must have been here recently. He had a vague memory of his brother asking him to borrow Mrs. O’Leary. That could have been anywhere between a week and three months ago for all Percy knew. 

The pillows and comforter looked so comfortable that Percy chanced lying down for a moment. He landed on something that crunched, and rolled so that he could grab and smooth out the little piece of paper. Tyson’s child-like scrawl was hard to read, but it looked like he’d really tried to make it neat, so Percy put the extra effort in.

_ Hi Percy! We missed you!  _ — _ Love, Tyson and Ella _

Percy swallowed and pinched his nose. He wondered when Tyson had written it. There was no shortage of times in which he’d insisted that he’d be back to camp the next day or the next weekend or the next…

He needed to get his act together. He’d had his break from being Percy Jackson, but now he was back. His friends expected things from him. He couldn’t let them down. A month. That was all he needed to hold out for.

The group outside was different when he rejoined it. There had been an addition—of the half-goat variety. 

“Grover!” Percy shouted. 

He fell into his best friend’s arms. They rocked back and forth a few seconds, until Percy heard a sniffing sound and pulled away.

“Aw, man,” he said. “Don’t cry.”

“I’m not,” Grover insisted, even as he wiped his eyes. “Fine, I am. But if you don’t want it to happen, stop disappearing on me!”

Grover was one of probably three people who could make that comment and not end up dripping.

“I didn’t disappear,” Percy muttered. “Like, any of the times.”

Hera wasn’t his fault. Tartarus wasn’t his fault. This past year was probably the closest to his fault, but he wouldn’t call it disappearing. Everyone knew where he was. 

“I know.” Grover’s eyes had softened around the edges, open and earnest. “I just worry about you, man.”

Grover could feel everything, even when they weren’t near each other. Percy forgot that sometimes—until he was swept up in a feeling he didn’t understand, usually about food or a certain bush, and he realized it was Grover’s instead of his. 

Piper, Jason, and Leo were all trying—with various levels of success—to look busy. Annabeth didn’t bother with that. She openly stared, analyzing every piece of the interaction.

“That is your job,” Percy conceded. “My protector since day one.”

Grover puffed out his chest a bit. “And always will be.”

Percy let him pull him back in. If he closed his eyes, he could pretend he was twelve again. He and Grover were just a little taller.

“I brought our tin cans,” Percy said. “I just put them in my cabin.”

Grover ruffled his hair. “I’ll stop by and get them later.”

The conch horn blew for dinner. Percy walked with one arm over Grover’s shoulders and the other tucked around Annabeth’s waist and tried to think  _ twelve _ . It wasn’t lost on him that he shouldn’t be nostalgic for that year. His first summer at camp had been spent in total confusion, fear, and mourning—as much as a twelve year old who couldn’t comprehend monsters or gods or even death could mourn. 

Everything was poisoned. He didn’t know how to feel about any of it anymore.

When he scraped his food into the fire, he let his fork squeal harshly against the plate. He didn’t bother mumbling his dad’s name. 

He settled in his usual place at Poseidon’s too-long table. It wasn’t as too-long as it had been the last time he was here. They’d cut it down during renovations to make room for more gods in the dining pavilion. 

A plate clinked against the table at the place next to him. He followed the arms on either side of it up to Nico. 

“You know,” he said, “there are ways to switch your seat, permanently. I know a guy who can write you a note.”

Before he could respond, Annabeth slid into the spot next to him. “We’re Chiron’s favorites, we don’t need doctors’ notes. Bring your boyfriend over here, di Angelo.”

Nico turned red again. He shook his head and walked away. 

Percy watched him nudge Will's shoulder and point toward them.

“He’s, like, stupid in love, isn’t he?”

“Yup,” Annabeth hugged his arm and rested her chin on his shoulder. 

“But he’s a baby…” Percy frowned as Will picked something off Nico’s jacket and Nico batted his hand away. “Will’s a good guy, right?”

“Yes. He’s great, you know that.”

He had saved Annabeth’s life two years ago in the Titan War and he’d always seemed nice enough around camp. Percy supposed that would have to be good enough to go off of until he got to know the guy better.

Annabeth swirled her fork around the pasta on her plate. “Greater than or less than?”

He thought about it for a moment. “Maybe equal to?”

She’d developed the system—the Sliding Scale of Okay she called it—because she hated how often people asked them that question after they got back from Tartarus. It was constant. All they heard from everyone they knew was ‘how are you two doing?’ and ‘are you okay?’ over and over.

“And how are you supposed to answer that?” she had complained to Percy. “Nobody wants to hear ‘no’. Besides, the answer’s yes. We’re always—“

“What should I ask you instead, then?” Percy had asked.

The scale went from one to ten. All the numbers meant you were okay, but a one was just clinging onto it and a ten was something closer to excellent. Sometimes it was hard to choose an exact number so they started asking if it was above or below five instead. If the person wanted to expand on where above or below they were, they could, but there was no pressure to.

It wasn’t a perfect system, because they both said greater than more often than not. But sometimes Annabeth would say, “above, but like a six” and Percy translated that to more of a three. The only time Percy had said below was the last time he’d seen her, on their original drive to Camp Half-Blood a month ago. So, equal to was an improvement. He thought it was pretty honest, too.

Annabeth kissed his shoulder. “I love you.”

“If you’re going to be gross, we’re not sitting with you.”

Percy looked up at Grover, who wagged a finger at them, but set his plate down anyway. 

Jason, Piper, and Leo were only a few steps behind him, and soon enough Will and Nico had made their way over as well. They were all talking at once—even Nico, of all people, was loud, swatting at Will and raising his voice to drown out Jason’s. Looking around at them, Percy could almost believe that they were regular kids who hadn’t been forced to carry the weight of the world a few times over. His friends were warm and bright and he loved them—even the ones he didn’t know as well. He would change that in the next month. It cemented his decision about coming back to camp.

Chiron cleared his throat noisily and shot them a pointed look. 

Their table fell silent. Jason looked like he was about to move to go back to his table, but then Annabeth surprised Percy by shouting, “Give it a rest, Chiron! It’s Percy’s first night back.”

The rest of the table cheered. Leo started pounding the surface with his fists and Grover stomped his hooves on the ground. Percy didn’t really want to be the cause of the commotion, but it was kind of gratifying to see Chiron bow his head in submission.

“Very well then,” he said, though it was nearly drowned out by the noise. “And a very happy welcome back to Percy.”

Of course he’d been the one to finally give him the dreaded ‘welcome’. Percy threw a mock salute in his direction without meeting his eyes, then turned back to the table, trying to pretend that they were the only ones that existed. 


	2. Percy Blows Up a Fountain. (Poseidon's a Jerk.)

Percy walked Annabeth to her cabin after the campfire. 

“Unless you want to come back to mine,” he tried.

She patted his chest. “I’ll let you get settled in tonight.”

He wasn’t surprised. When he’d sent her an IM to apologize for messing up their summer, she’d said the month apart would be a good thing.

“We can’t be in each other’s pockets all the time. It’s not healthy.” Direct quote. It had sounded like something she got from Piper.

Percy hadn’t known how to respond at the time. He’d just gaped at her like a fish. They’d been ‘in each other’s pockets’ for years. Things went wrong when they were apart, not when they were together. 

But now, he could be cool about it. He’d had a month’s worth of practice.

“Unless you need me,” Annabeth added hurriedly. “If you don’t want to be alone, I can—“

“I always need you, Wise Girl,” he said. “But I can make it through the night.”

She looked like she was trying to bite down her smile. It didn’t really work. She looped her arms around his neck and rocked onto her tiptoes to kiss him.

“Yeah, he’s not allowed in,” Malcolm said as he walked by.

Percy laughed against Annabeth’s lips. She held up her middle finger over her shoulder for a moment before pulling away and yelling at Malcolm’s retreating back. 

“He wasn’t planning on coming in!”

“Good!” Malcolm called.

Annabeth turned back to him, rolling her eyes. She pressed one more kiss to his lips before stepping back toward her doorway. “See you in the morning?”

“See you in the morning.”

She gave him one more smile—wide and bright—before she disappeared. It was the kind that made him think he could do anything. Or at least that convinced him to try to. 

Once the door closed behind her, the feeling subsided.

He found himself praying a little as he walked back to his hollow, dark, cabin.  _ No nightmares. Please, Dad. Just this once.  _ He’d rather have a demigod dream than relive the past again.

As usual, Poseidon twisted his prayers.

He dreamt of a girl—about twelve, maybe younger. She held a knife in a shaky hand, head swiveling frantically. Blood trickled from a sharp cut across her eyebrow. She wiped at it with one of her sleeves to stop it from dripping into her eye.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” she said. 

Percy’s perspective shifted and it was like he was in her body. Three more children, even younger, were huddled against the trunk of a fallen tree. The boy on the left was sobbing. The girl in the middle was staring right back at him with undisguised distrust in her eyes. Percy couldn’t see the third child very well. They were tiny, slumped over on the middle girl’s lap, face obscured. 

The girl’s voice started again. It felt like it was coming from Percy’s mouth. “It’s not safe here. You have to follow me.”

None of the children moved, but something else did—above them. 

His dad was standing there, on top of the tree trunk, casual as ever. His bright Hawaiian shirt stood out against the forest tones at night. 

Percy tried to call out to him, but nothing came out of his mouth. Poseidon just smiled, but it was all wrong—almost apologetic. Gods didn’t do apologetic. Unless they really, really fucked up and were begging for help.

Percy shook his head, strained against his broken vocal cords. Whatever this was, he wanted no part of it. He was done with the quests and the favors and the danger. All he had was a month at camp before college. That was going to be his fresh start. 

Poseidon’s smile vanished, turning into something hard and resolved. He pointed at the children. Percy shook his head again, but Poseidon just nodded. He disappeared like he was making a point— _ end of discussion.  _ The end to one that they hadn’t even had. Typical.

_ Come back, _ Percy tried to say, but what came out of his mouth was, “Quickly, before—”

Pain struck through his back and plunged forward, right where his mortal spot used to be when he had the Curse of Achilles. He stared down in horror at the talon sticking out through his stomach. He reached for it, but it retracted slowly. Two of the three kids started screaming. He gasped, fell to his knees. 

Percy jolted upright, chest heaving. He patted his stomach, frantic, but there was no talon. His skin was intact. The cabin filtered back into focus one heartbeat at a time. 

It was worse than a nightmare. Somewhere out there, that scene had happened, or was happening, or was going to happen. Worst of all, it was a task. Poseidon pointing at the children...that could only mean one thing.

He threw his hands down, slamming his fists into the bed by his sides. 

The water in the fountain exploded. Some of it came his way, but he angrily willed it around him. Something shattered—a window. He glared at it, then at the rest of the cabin. All of his belongings were soaked. Water dripped from the walls and ceiling into puddles on the floor.

Now, he understood why his mom wanted him to unpack as soon as he got to a destination. He’d left his backpack open. All of his clothes inside were heavy with water as he pulled them out. He tried to wring out a few before giving up on it, too agitated to be patient. He tugged on the least wet hoodie, which dried as soon as it went over his head. Then, he stomped out of the cabin to assess the damage. A few harpies squawked at him, but he just fixed them with his wolf-stare and they retreated. 

Shards of glass littered the grass outside his window. The debris stretched at least twenty feet. He was lucky. Any farther and it might have pierced the outside of the adjacent cabin. But, he couldn’t just leave the glass for any camper to step on—especially if he wanted to avoid having to explain himself. 

Percy trudged back inside and grabbed a broom. He sent a silent 'thank you' to Tyson, because really the cabin wouldn’t have any cleaning supplies without him, and started sweeping. It was hard to tell if the method was effective, but he didn’t have another option.

A prickly sensation traveled up his spine and settled at the base of his neck. Someone, or something, was watching him. He reached into the pocket of his pajama pants, thumbing at Riptide’s cap.

He turned around, ready to pull it out, but there was no threat behind him. Only Grover and Nico.

It seemed like an odd combination, but maybe it wasn’t anymore. He’d been away for a long time. Maybe Grover and Nico were besties now.

“Hey,” he said, then turned around and went back to sweeping.

“Dude,” Grover said, “what happened?”

“Oh, you know, just a little problem with my fountain.” Percy glanced over his shoulder. “Sorry if I woke you guys up.”

Nico knelt by one of the larger shards and picked it up with his thumb and index finger, careful to avoid the jagged edges. He set it down near the entrance to Percy’s cabin, then grabbed another, starting a pile.

“I was already awake.” He met Percy’s eyes for a moment. “I had a dream.”

Percy paused. “Your dad?”

“And some kids.”

“Fuck,” he mumbled, broom strokes becoming angrier.

Nico sat down on the step, resting his chin on his knuckles. “Yeah.”

“What—what are you guys talking about?” Grover asked, a note of fear creeping into his voice.

Percy ignored him, instead taking a step back to look at the window. It was pretty obvious that it was broken. Pointed shards of glass stuck out from the edges of the frame.

“There’s, like, construction stuff, right?” He turned to Grover. “From all of Jason’s building? Do you think there are any windows?”

Grover looked back and forth between Nico and Percy. “Um.”

“Over there,” Nico said, pointing to a shed near the newer cabins. “I’m going to try to IM Hazel. Do you have a prism?”

Percy gave him rough instructions to where he thought Nico could find one in the cabin and then started toward the shed. The familiar cadence of hoof-steps followed him.

“Percy?” Grover said as he settled into stride next to him. “What was Nico talking about? What dream?”

Percy yanked open the door of the shed and felt around for a light switch. His fingers finally fumbled over one and light filled the space. It looked bigger on the inside than the outside. That was probably one of the Hecate’s kids doing. Thankfully, a stack of glass panes sat in the corner. Percy grabbed the one on top and hoisted it over his head.

“Perce,” Grover tried again. “I can feel you freaking out.”

“Grover,” he said back in the same tone. “I am not freaking out.”

He wasn’t. He was resigned. He understood what needed to happen. He’d fix his window, then he and Nico would explain the dream to Chiron once the sun came up, then they would go on a quest.

His heart skipped a beat and he closed his eyes for a moment.

“Percy.” Grover’s voice was low, as close to a warning as it ever got.

He opened his eyes and started back toward his cabin. “I shouldn’t have come back.”

“Well, since you aren’t going to tell me what happened, I can’t know for sure,“ Grover huffed. “But I have a feeling it would have happened wherever you were.”

“I don’t know. Maybe if I was home my dad would have taken a hint.” He directed the last word away from Grover, tilting his head toward the sky. “And left me alone.”

“Okay.” Grover’s eyes darted around like he actually expected Poseidon to appear and strike them down. “You know I hate when you do that. What does your dad want?”

Percy raised his shoulders in a little shrug, adjusting the window pane. Grover just kept watching him, waiting.

“In my dream there were these kids—half-bloods.” Percy swallowed down the phantom pain of the talon piercing through his torso. “They’re young. But monsters are already—I guess two are Big Three if Nico dreamt about it, too, so—“

“That’s a protector's job,” Grover interrupted. “I’ll get a few satyrs and we’ll bring them in.”

It was easy to underestimate Grover, but he was just as brave, if not braver, than any half-blood Percy had ever met. The best friend he could ask for, too.

“I don’t think it is this time. Otherwise my dad wouldn’t have bothered with the nightmare express mission shipment.”

“That’s not fair.”

Percy agreed, but something about Grover saying it in that dejected tone of his, like he was about to burst into another round of tears on Percy’s behalf, made him decide to suck it up.

“Hey.” He wanted to wrap an arm around Grover’s shoulders, but both of his were preoccupied with the window. He settled for elbowing him instead. “Not so bad. It’s family, you know?”

The thought of a little sibling filled him with dread, but he tried to keep that out of his voice. He wouldn’t wish being the child of Poseidon on any kid. The only silver lining was that they might not have to go through what he had. The world of gods and monsters was a little more stable than when Percy entered it. He just hoped it would stay that way. That was probably a futile pipedream. 

“I’m sorry, Percy,” Grover said. “After everything—you deserve a break. You really do.”

Percy didn’t know what to say to that, so he just nodded with a closed-mouth smile. 

When they walked back into the cabin, it was still drenched. Nico stood at the foot of the bed, holding a prism.

“Oh,” Grover said softly as he looked around at the carnage. Percy hated that tone more than the dejected one or the almost angry one. 

“Shit. Sorry. I’ll just—”

He set the window down on his bed, let his eyes flutter shut, and willed the water back into the fountain. The familiar tug in his stomach started and he dug deeper, pulling all of the water off the wet surfaces of his room. He opened his eyes just in time to see the last of it dropping down into the fountain. It was significantly less full than when the night began, but at least the rest of his room looked normal. 

“That’s better.” Percy collapsed back onto his bed for a moment, landing half on the window and wincing. “Any luck with Hazel?”

Nico shook his head. “She’s asleep.”

That made sense. The gods’ Roman counterparts didn’t visit their children as often. It would probably scare poor Hazel to death to actually get a sign from Pluto.

“Want to help me put this window up?” Percy asked.

They both pitched in. It took them a while—none of them were particularly gifted in building things. They had to make a few more runs back to the shed for tools that Percy really should have thought about the first time he’d gone in there.

It would have been faster with Leo or Annabeth present, but by the time 4am rolled around, Percy had a makeshift window that would at least avoid immediate suspicion.

They ended up on the steps outside of the cabin afterward. Grover’s head laid across Percy’s lap. Nico sat a few feet away, spinning his sword around in his hands in a way that might have been menacing to someone who didn’t know him.

When he looked up, his face was anything but scary—just the opposite. Percy wanted to wipe the fear off of his face. He’d felt protective of the kid since Bianca died, since Thalia became a hunter, and it left just the two of them. Nico was older now, and there was no prophecy looming over their heads, but he felt the urge to look out for him all the same.

“Percy—” He trailed off, shaking his head. “What are we going to do?”

“Find them,” he said, with what he hoped was more certainty than he felt. 

If Grover sensed otherwise through the empathy link he, thankfully, didn’t say anything. Or maybe he was just asleep. His eyes were closed. 

Nico tapped his hands along the hilt of his sword. “Should we leave now? It didn’t seem good.”

Percy couldn’t think too hard about the kids, huddled together, screaming. It reminded him too much of little Annabeth, with Luke and Thalia somewhere in the wilderness, petrified that monsters would find them. The thought was almost enough to make him agree with Nico. Those kids were out there somewhere, scared. They needed help. But they also needed a plan.

He didn’t want to be the one who made the decision, but Nico was looking at him like he expected one. A scream was bottled up at the base of Percy’s throat, just waiting to be let loose. He didn’t know exactly what it would say, but he was sure it wouldn’t be pretty. It would probably yell at Nico to decide so that Percy didn’t have to.  _ I took the Great Prophecy, now it’s your turn.  _ He didn’t want any more world-ending or life-altering decisions on his hands.

But he kept the scream trapped down there, because that’s what he had to do. 

“We should wait until the morning—talk to Chiron. And the others,” Percy forced out. “I have a thing with disappearing. It would scare Annabeth.”

Nico lowered his eyes. “Right.”

He had it in his head that they were still mad at him for knowing Percy was at New Rome and not telling Annabeth. So much had happened since then that Percy couldn’t care less. Besides, why blame other half-bloods when their parents were the ones pulling the strings. 

“You should get some sleep,” he said. “We might have to leave early.”

“Then you should sleep,” Nico retorted.

Percy let out a dry laugh, but the rest of his response was cut short by the sound of footsteps. He and Nico exchanged a look. Percy shifted Grover’s head onto the ground and stood slowly. His hand went to Riptide in his pocket again. Nico’s was clenched around his sword, holding it out in front of him. 

A figure was walking down the middle of the line of cabins. Percy took the two steps down from his cabin door carefully, Nico at his side. The figure sped up. He uncapped Riptide. The celestial bronze glowed in the night, but it didn’t make the figure easier to see.

“It’s me! Don’t get stab-happy, boys.”

Percy recognized that voice. It took him a second to place it—he hadn’t seen her in a while—but when he did, he lowered his sword, not quite putting it away. Nico did the same. They’d seen a lot in the past few years. Cyclopes who could mimic voices, Eidolons who could possess their friends’ bodies. 

Thalia Grace stepped into the light of his sword. There were deep bags under her eyes, like she’d been up all night, but besides that, she was the same as ever. One of the few perks of immortality, Percy guessed. She didn’t have to worry about looking in a mirror and not recognizing the person she’d become.

She sighed. “You guys, too?”

It took Percy’s sleep-deprived brain a second to understand what she was saying, but once he did, a trap door opened beneath his heart and it plummeted out of his chest. 

“You mean—?” Nico asked.

She didn’t need to answer. They all knew. 

Percy touched the cap to Riptide and deposited it in his pocket. He crossed his arms over his chest, like that would be enough to hold him together. One Big Three kid was bad, two even worse, but three? He was surprised they hadn’t already been skewered and devoured. They probably had been by now—Percy’s dream had ended hours ago. They wouldn't survive long out there, as young as they were, limited weapons, zero training. He swallowed. He’d made the wrong decision. They should have left hours ago. His own hold ups might have cost them their lives. 

Thalia squinted at Percy. “I didn’t even think you were here.”

That meant she’d talked to Annabeth. He wondered what she’d said to her.

“I got back yesterday.”

She laughed. “Some welcome…”

He fidgeted a little. Grover’s eyes were on him. So were Nico’s, but he averted them when Percy looked at him. They were both afraid he was going to go off—treating him with baby gloves—which just confirmed that Annabeth had been telling people something.

“Do you guys have a plan?” Thalia asked.

Nico looked at Percy. At least this time, it wasn’t because he was afraid he was going to blow up another fountain.

Percy shrugged. “Step one was to wait until morning.”

Thalia rolled her eyes. “Of course it was. Come on.”

Percy shook Grover awake and they followed Thalia to the Big House. She rapped her knuckles against the door and then leaned against it, arms crossed over her chest, face smug. The smirk fell after there was no response. She turned around and knocked again.

After three tries, Percy cracked a smile. “So...wait until morning?”

“I hate this place.” Thalia slid down the side of the house until she was sitting with her back against it. “It’s a wonder anything gets done around here.”

Percy was starting to hate it too, more and more with every passing second. He sat down next to her. Nico sat on his other side. Grover was already fast asleep again, curled up in a ball a few yards away.

“I wish I could do that,” Percy murmured, wiping his eyes.

“You might as well,” Thalia said. He was surprised to find no thinly veiled judgement in her voice. “Who knows when this old centaur will wake up.”

“Yeah, well the problem is that I wouldn’t be able to.”

Or that Poseidon would visit him again if he did. He didn’t want to be murdered in the position of all three of the kids as he had been by the girl who tried to rescue them earlier. He shuddered a little, like the talon was piercing through his back again, and Thalia looked him up and down, lips twisting as she studied him.

“Sun rises soon though, right?” Nico tapped his foot a few times. “Maybe that will wake him up.”

Percy had his suspicions about the real reason Nico wanted the sun to come up. They were confirmed a little over half an hour later when none other than Will Solace wandered out of the Apollo Cabin. 

Nico bounced to his feet and walked over to the railing of the Big House’s patio. He didn’t wave or anything—just stood there like a human bat signal. The kid could have passed for a tiny Batman, with his oversized black sweatshirt, jeans, and boots. The signal worked, though, so who was Percy to judge? Will broke into a jog as soon as he noticed it. Even his feet pounding up the steps didn’t wake Grover.

“Is everything alright?” His eyes stayed on Nico for a few seconds before turning to Percy, then Thalia. His eyebrows scrunched together. “Sorry. You look familiar, but—”

“Thalia,” Nico supplied quickly, like he was trying to undo the damage that had already been done.

Will’s jaw dropped a little. “Like, from Thalia’s Pine?”

She groaned and knocked the back of her head against the Big House door. She turned and waited as if hoping Chiron would finally open it and put an end to their vigil. Even when she gave up on that, slumping back against the building, she didn’t answer Will.

Percy nodded at him. “Yes. She’s the tree.”

Thalia punched his shoulder. Her aim was perfect even though her eyes were closed.

“Don’t feel bad, Will. She’s hard to recognize.” Percy winced as she hit him again. “Looks so different every time I— _ ow _ —see her. It’s crazy how much a person can change.  _ Ow _ !”

She pummeled him a few more times for good measure before slumping back against the door.

“Alright then.” Will drifted a little closer to Nico’s section of the porch, away from Thalia’s. Percy didn’t blame him. His shoulder would definitely bruise. “So, you’re about to tell me you decided to have a reunion sleepover on the Big House porch, right?”

Nico started explaining. Will sat down next to him and played with one of his hands while he talked. Nico was either too tired to notice or too tired to care about the public display of affection. It made Percy wish Annabeth got up with the sun—just for today anyway.

“You should have slept,” Will said. “If you do have to leave—”

“They didn’t sleep either,” Nico protested.

“Well, that changes everything then.”

They descended into the bickering that Percy was starting to realize might be their default. Thalia made a gagging sound next to him that they were too caught up in their pseudo-argument to hear.

Percy let his head roll in her direction, laughing a little. 

Will did have a point though—if they planned on leaving once they talked to Chiron, they hadn’t set themselves up for a good start. Thalia looked worse off than Percy felt. 

“Where were you?” he asked her. “How far did you have to come?”

“Upstate,” she snapped, a dangerous glint flashing in her eyes. “If I hadn’t been so close, I would have gone straight to the kids.”

Percy sucked his bottom lip between his teeth to stop himself from biting right back. He loved Thalia. She was a good friend, but it wasn’t hard to get her to strike, especially with touchy subjects like siblings and runaway demigods. A combination of Percy, Thalia, and a touchy subject was volatile, deadly even. They had the propensity to clash—both stubborn and impulsive in a lot of the same ways.

“Sorry,” she added. “I just—” Her hands fluttered in the air for a moment and then she started slamming one of her fists against the door in time with her words. “Wish. This. Horse. Would. Wake. UP.”

One of Grover’s snores turned into a bleat and he sat up, blinking around at them. As soon as he realized nothing had changed, he laid back down, breaths slowing once again.

“Maybe,” Will said, standing and wiping his hands on his knees before reaching back for Nico and pulling him to his feet, “you three should try to turn in for a few hours. I’ll wait here with Grover and let you know as soon as Chiron wakes up.”

Percy opened his mouth to protest. Thalia took a deep breath beside him, probably about to launch into a similar series of arguments.

Neither of them got a chance to because the door behind them swung open. Thalia leapt out of the way, but she was still pinned between the door and the wall.

Chiron’s lower body was folded into his wheelchair, so he fit through the doorframe easily. He looked bright and well-rested, his smile only growing when he saw Percy.

“Percy! Good morning!” The smile fell a little as he took in the whole scene on the porch. “Nico. Will. Grover. Good morning.” Thalia stepped out from behind the door, angry electricity sizzling off her skin, and Chiron aged ten years in a split second. “Thalia. Oh dear…”

“Yeah,” she said. “There’s a problem.”


	3. Annabeth Makes a Good Pillow. (Everyone Except Grover’s a Jerk.)

After Thalia gave Chiron a brief rundown, his face growing paler with each word, he waved their group into the Big House. Percy shook Grover’s shoulder and helped him up.

“Will,” Chiron said, “why don’t you wake the other cabin counselors.”

He muttered under his breath about how much the other campers would love him for waking them up before seven in the morning, but still jogged back out the door.

Chiron led them into the rec room. Percy spotted a cluster of three chairs and made his way toward it, feet dragging. Grover sat in the one on his left, so he kept his ankle looped around one of the legs of the chair on his right, to save it for Annabeth. 

She was the first one to arrive. Her hair was thrown up into a messy bun that hadn’t quite captured all the strands. A large section of unruly curls hung down her back.

“Hey,” she said, sliding into the chair he’d saved.

She pulled his hood down from over his head and ran one hand over his cheek and into his hair. It was shaking slightly—from anger, not fear. Percy hoped it wasn’t directed at him.

“I can’t believe this. Your dad—”

Her voice cut off and she shook her head. Percy knew the look. Anything she had been about to say wouldn’t have been very deferential. He didn’t think his dad would incinerate his girlfriend over a few angry words, but with gods you could never be too sure.

He didn’t need to hear exactly what she wanted to say anyway. It was enough to know that she understood that everything about this situation sucked. Big time. 

“I should have come to your cabin last night,” she said.

“How could you have known?”

That was the wrong thing to say. Her eyes clouded over like she was running calculations, trying to figure out the answer to that very same question.

“Hey,” he said, leaning his head into the crook between her shoulder and neck. “Better that you didn’t. The fountain...” He made a little explosion sound.

She rubbed a hand along his back, right over the spot where he used to have the Curse of Achilles. It wasn’t sensitive anymore, but it was still comforting to have her hand over it, especially after his dream. 

Percy dozed off just like that. It wasn’t comfortable exactly, and couldn’t have been for Annabeth either because he was essentially in a half nose-dive from his chair into hers. But something about her presence put him right to sleep. He could never say that aloud because it didn’t sound like a good thing, but it was. She was safe. He could rest.

She shook him awake and he blinked a few times, raising his head slightly. 

“Everyone’s here,” she whispered close to his ear.

Percy sat up despite the heaviness of his head and his limbs. He hadn’t slept well the night before either, or the night before that—too worked up about returning to camp. All he wanted was to continue using Annabeth as a pillow.

Piper had taken the seat on Annabeth’s other side. Leo, then Jason, were next to her. More familiar faces filled the table—Clarisse looked older, back from college for the summer—but there were also people he didn’t recognize.

“I’m sorry to call you all here so early,” Chiron started. The gathered campers grumbled back at him. “But, there has been an interesting development—perhaps one of you would care to explain?”

He gestured toward Percy. Percy looked around the table for help, but Nico’s face was unreadable, and Thalia just shot him a tired smirk and raised eyebrows that seemed to say  _ all you. _

Percy sighed. “Nico, Thalia, and I all had dreams last night. There were these kids—and our dads were in them...”

Clovis was snoring. He looked super comfortable curled up in his chair. They should use a picture of the kid, just like this, as the dictionary definition of ‘sleeping’. He could practically envision the little ‘z’s floating above his head. Percy envied him.

Chiron cleared his throat. Everyone else was still staring at Percy. He’d gotten distracted.

“Um,” he said, trying to get back on track. “We think the kids are our siblings. They’re all together. That’s, like, suicide. They won’t make it without help.”

“I can have a group of satyrs ready in an hour,” Grover piped up. 

Percy turned to him. “Grover—”

“Okay,” Clarisse interrupted, “how is this any of the rest of our problems?”

A few other heads at the table nodded in agreement. Leo started to, but Piper elbowed him.

“Well, it seems to me that this is the closest thing to a quest that we have received since the oracle went silent,” Chiron said. “I thought the whole camp could work together to inform our strategy moving forward.”

Clarisse crossed her arms and leaned back in her chair with a huff.

“I agree with her, actually,” Thalia said. “I think it’s pretty clear what our dreams meant. Our fathers want us to get the kids safely back to camp.”

Grover sat forward. “That’s a protector’s duty!”

“Do we know where they are?” Leo asked. “Because no offense but if they’re a block away, why isn’t someone just—going?”

All of their eyes turned to Percy again. He shrugged. The forest he saw could have been anywhere.

“Colorado,” Nico supplied. “I found a sign.”

Hades kids could control their dreams, not as well as Hypnos kids were able to, but better than most. Percy sometimes forgot that. Even if he had the ability, he didn’t think he would have been able to stay in the dream any longer than he had. Nico had way more willpower than him.

“You’re sure?” Thalia asked. “Colorado?”

Nico nodded. A dismayed murmur passed through the circle around the ping-pong table, as dread resettled in Percy’s stomach. They’d never make it in time. 

Jason stood up. “Someone has to leave now.”

Percy hadn’t even spared the guy a thought. They probably should have woken him up when Thalia arrived, but she hadn’t asked to, and Percy had been thinking about other things. It must have been hard to be the only other Big Three kid present who hadn’t gotten a mission from his father. Percy wanted to assure him that it was probably a Greek thing. He was also tempted to tell the guy that he’d willingly switch spots, but his conscience wouldn’t let him. That was his family out there. 

“Even if you left now, there’s a very low chance of success,” a Nike girl that Percy sort of recognized chirped.

He’d missed the ceaseless optimism of these meetings. 

“Once I get a hold of Hazel, she can try to get to them from Camp Jupiter,” Nico said, but he sounded apprehensive. “We could meet them somewhere and bring them back to camp?”

“Even New Rome to Colorado is pretty far,” Annabeth muttered. “And they’re running. Colorado is just a starting point for the search.”

Thalia hummed in agreement.

They would know. Their trio had bounced around the east coast for months before reaching Camp Half-Blood. And there hadn’t been a happy end to their journey. Percy reached over and squeezed Annabeth’s hand in case this whole thing was stirring up bad memories, but she just looked at him like she didn’t understand why he’d done that before turning back to the ping pong table.

“We need to think of an alternative way to reach them,” she continued. “Something faster than traveling on foot—or even driving.”

Percy shot her an inquisitive look. It sounded like she had an idea, but she wasn’t saying it. She was dropping hints, hoping that someone else would catch her drift and suggest whatever she had worked out. That was not an Annabeth move at all. The pool of dread in his stomach just kept growing.

“If all three of them are working together, couldn’t anyone take a plane? Even Percy and Nico?” Piper asked. “I mean, if Zeus knows that their end goal is to help his kid get to camp—”

Percy laughed and then tried to cover it with a cough. Based on the looks he received, it wasn’t very convincing.

“Sorry,” he said to Piper. “They just—don’t make it that easy. I’m not convinced they’re even working together. For all we know this is a game to them. Whose kid can collect their little sibling first?”

“No planes,” Nico agreed. “But since we aren’t playing into our parents’ possible motives—pitting us against each other, whatever—I can shadow travel.”

Will tensed beside him. “That’s far, Nico.”

“If you did, you’d have to bring me and Percy,” Thalia said. 

Grover raised a hand. “Or a few—”

Thalia looked at him. The harsh set of her jaw didn’t leave much room for argument. She turned back to Nico. “You’d need help to fight your way back on foot. Unless you think you can shadow-travel the whole way in one jump with three or four kids.”

_ Or four _ . Percy frowned across the table at her. If she thought the fourth was the girl who had found the three others in the dream, he had some bad news for her. 

“It’s too dangerous,” Will declared before Nico could respond. 

Nico glared at him. They looked like they were about to start going at it, with a little more ferocity than their bickering on the porch earlier, but Annabeth spoke up again.

“I think Nico shadow-traveling is an option we can keep in mind,” she said. “But we should assess all our options.”

Percy turned toward her, trying to beam his questions into her mind.  _ What option are you thinking of? Why aren’t you saying it? _

She refused to meet his eyes.

“First, an easier question,” Chiron said. “Who is going on this quest?”

He didn’t have to keep calling it a quest. There was no prophecy, no oracle. Percy understood that’s what it essentially was, but Chiron seemed so excited about it—like he’d been itching to send a demigod to their doom for the past year that the oracle had been MIA.

“We already know that, right?” Thalia said. “It’s me, Percy, and Nico. We had the dreams. We’ve quested before and we’re a good team.”

“This isn’t a quest!” Grover insisted. 

Percy wanted to hug him. He knew he couldn’t actually let Grover go in his place, but he loved him for trying. 

“Maybe we should wait to decide until we know how we’re getting there,” Annabeth said. “It might impact that decision.”

“Gods, Annabeth.” Clarisse propped her legs on the table, crossing one over the other. “If you have an idea, spit it out.”

Percy knew he should probably side with Annabeth, but he had to agree with Clarisse. The way Annabeth was talking—like she was a completely different person—was starting to freak him out. His mind conjured images of Eidolons that he couldn’t shake. The same feeling he’d had in the car a month ago, when he’d first tried to come back to Camp Half-Blood was creeping back up on him.

“I just think that we’ve only really considered a plane or shadow-traveling.” She was choosing her words carefully. “Those aren’t our only options.”

“Let’s see what’s left then,” Will said. Percy was pretty sure he was just trying to bump shadow-traveling off the list of options. “Flying would be a Thalia thing. Shadow-traveling’s Nico’s. So that leaves—” He studied Percy.

“Too bad Percy’s kinda useless for getting to a landlocked state,” Clarisse grumbled.

Just when he was starting to think they were on the same side, she decided to take a shot at him. Some things never changed.

“That’s what I’m saying!” Annabeth exclaimed. 

That was different. Percy did his best not to appear too offended. 

“Not like that. I just mean, we’re focusing on the Big Three and ignoring other solutions.”

“We’re all listening,” someone Percy didn’t know shouted. “Just say it!”

Annabeth shifted in her seat, eyes flicking to Percy for a moment, before falling down to her lap. “Air’s not an option. On the ground by car or train would be too slow. That leaves—”

“Underground.” Leo rubbed his hands together. “The Labyrinth.”

Everyone started talking at once. Or maybe a few people started talking and the rest of the sound was the roar in Percy’s ears. He must have heard wrong, but nobody was correcting Leo. Instead, they were taking the idea and running with it, starting to plan. He turned to Annabeth, desperate for some sort of explanation, but she still wouldn’t look at him. Because this was the solution that she believed in. She just hadn’t wanted to be the one to propose it.

He felt like he was in every classroom he’d ever been in. Everything was moving too fast, and he didn’t understand anything that the teacher was writing on the board. He’d missed the first part of the lesson because his brain had skipped over it, and now he was playing an impossible game of catch-up. Even Grover avoided his eyes when Percy tried to look to him for help.

“What are you talking about?” he blurted out.

He always hated having to ask that question. It was usually met with disappointed frowns, eyes filled with pity, and ‘why don’t you stay after class, Percy?’s. 

This time wasn’t much different. The chatter died and everyone either stared at him or wouldn’t look at him at all, like they’d said something they weren’t supposed to. He clenched his fists in his lap and waited.

“The Labyrinth’s back,” Clarisse said dryly. “They think it’s a fun toy.”

There was no love lost between her and the Labyrinth. Her boyfriend had nearly lost his mind down there. Once again, Percy found himself on Clarisse’s side. It was happening more than usual today. He wondered what that said about both of them.

“Clarisse, that’s not true,” Annabeth said. “Nobody thinks it’s a toy.”

“Could have fooled me.” She turned to Percy again. “They had a fucking relay race down there.”

“Three-legged death race,” someone corrected. 

“What,” Percy said, but his voice sounded far away.

“That shouldn’t have happened.” Annabeth gave Chiron a pointed look and he pretended that he didn’t see her, picking at his cuticles. “It’s not a toy. But it is a tool.”

“I don’t understand,” Percy said.

Leo leaned around Piper and Annabeth so he was in Percy’s view. “Remember last summer? Pasiphae recreated the Labyrinth. Hazel led me through part of it.”

Everything from last summer was a hazy mirage that Percy couldn’t quite reach anymore. Except Tartarus. That was crystal clear. Although he couldn’t always be sure which of those memories were actually dreams.

“That was in Rome,” he said. “This is New York.”

He sounded like an idiot—and not even the persona he put on sometimes to seem unassuming so people would underestimate him or give him information quickly. He just couldn’t think. It wasn’t only his brain. His whole body felt fuzzy, too.

“Well, it’s everywhere now,” Leo said. “You can use it to get pretty much anywhere in the world.”

“Well, not yet.” Annabeth  _ finally _ looked at Percy, but now he found he didn’t really want her to. She was too close. He needed some space. “Percy, it’s different now. Not as bad.”

He chewed on the inside of his lip. His hands fidgeted frantically in the pockets of his hoodie. “I—don’t know what that means.”

“Neither do we, really. Not yet.” She leaned toward him and he leaned back. Hurt flashed across her face, but she kept speaking. “We’ve been mapping it.”

Percy blinked. ‘We’ was inclusive. ‘We’ meant Annabeth. She had been mapping the Labyrinth. It wasn’t just an idea that she thought was the only solution. She’d been down there and she hadn’t even thought to mention it to him before now.

“A couple of weeks ago we found a path to Nebraska,” she said. “It felt like a day inside, but when we got out, only an hour had passed. 

The static in his brain got louder. Annabeth hadn’t just popped into the Labyrinth a few times—she had willingly spent a day in there, completely unsure where in the world she would end up. She could have gotten stranded across the ocean, or died down there, and Percy would have had no idea. 

“Is Nebraska near Colorado?” someone asked.

Annabeth looked like she was disappointed in the United States education system. It was a very particular look she got at least a few times a week. Usually it made Percy laugh, but right now he couldn’t enjoy it.

“You think that’s our best option,” Thalia clarified. “Going underground?”

Underground had never been one of Percy’s favorite places to go. The constant weight hanging overhead down there was suffocating, restraining. It made him antsy. But in the past year or so he’d actively rejected anything under sea level. He hadn’t so much as ridden the subway since they got off the Argo II because underground meant monsters and walls closing in around him and drowning and choking on the air and pits that fell down, down, down.

“I think so,” Annabeth said. 

Thalia grimaced. “Fine. I’m in.”

“I still don’t understand why we’re insisting that this isn’t a mission for satyrs.” Grover’s voice shook over every word. “They’re young, unclaimed half-bloods. That’s always been our duty as protectors.”

Another swell of gratitude for his best friend swept through Percy. Satyrs hated being underground, away from nature. Grover had been none too happy about their first trip through the Labyrinth all those years ago. 

“Grover,” Thalia said impatiently, “if there really are three Big Three kids out there, Percy, Nico, and I can protect them way better than a couple of satyrs can. No offense. Nico? You in?”

Nico was watching Percy from across the table. 

“Yeah,” he said slowly. “But for our third—we need someone who’s been mapping the Labyrinth, right?”

He was trying to give Percy an out. Unfortunately, he couldn’t take it. The thought of Annabeth going down there without him—even if she already had without him knowing—was almost worse than going down there himself. Both were at the very top of the list of things he absolutely did not want to happen. 

But if Grover could be brave for him, Percy could be brave for those little kids out there.

“Is it too late to reconsider the plane option?” he tried to joke. It came out flat and watery like he was about to cry. Nobody laughed.

“No, I’m going.” He stood, discreetly holding the table with one hand when the room tilted a little. He had to get out of here. He was going to pass out. “We’re good here, right?”

A few people called his name as he walked toward the door of the Big House, but he didn’t look back. One of them was Annabeth. Then she must have turned back to the table, because he heard her say, “I’m going, too. We need someone who knows the route, like Nico said.”

“Wait a minute.” Will’s voice. “If Annabeth’s going—”

Percy let the door slam behind him and staggered toward the Sound.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah maybe there were other ways lol
> 
> Thanks for reading!! <3


	4. Thalia Tries to be Nice. (Thalia's a Jerk.)

He curled up on the sand, just within reach of the biggest swells of the tide. The Sound wasn’t exactly the ocean, but it was the closest he’d been in the last year. It was nice, calming. No matter how angry he was at his father, his domain always made him feel safe. He soaked up the salty air, the sand between his toes, even let himself get wet when the water reached him.

Something poked his back and he wiggled around, reaching for Riptide, but it was just Thalia looking down at him. Her boot a few inches from his side. 

She’d kicked him.

He threw sand at her.

She spluttered a little and then sat down. Whereas Percy felt like he could blend into the beach if he wanted to, exist there forever as part of the landscape, Thalia stuck out, at complete odds with their surroundings. She placed both her hands into the sand and her face contorted with disgust.

She turned that same look toward Percy. “You really are losing it. I mean, I’d heard, but I didn’t believe it...”

Percy sat up, scowling. “Gee, Thalia. Thanks.”

She laughed, so he threw another handful of sand at her. 

“Ugh, stop,” she said, batting at the cloud and trying to disperse it before it hit her face.

“Well, stop saying I’m losing it.”

“I’m just calling it like I see it. You’re still in pajama pants. You haven’t put on shoes today—”

Percy wanted to protest that there was a very logical explanation for that, which was that he’d been up since 1AM, but he supposed she and Nico had been, too.

“Nico said you were sweeping glass? I didn’t ask. Then you walked out of the Big House in a panic-induced stupor and now you’re what? Laying on the beach waiting for the tide to drag you out? I don’t think I need any sort of degree to say that you’re losing it.”

Percy focused on the ocean. It was easy to slow his breathing to match the lazy waves, but it didn’t get rid of the lump in his throat. 

“Is that what Annabeth’s telling people?” he whispered.

Thalia scoffed. “Of course not. Don’t be an idiot. She’s held people at knife-point just for suggesting it.” She nudged her shoulder into his. “And by people, I mean me. Like, twenty minutes ago. I thought she was going to stab me through the trachea.”

The thought of Annabeth defending his honor made him blush. He almost wished he’d stuck around to see it.

“She’s worried about you,” Thalia said. “Everyone is.”

Percy tried to look at her, but her eyes were so intense that he couldn’t do it for long. She always seemed older than him. No matter how apparent their physical age difference became, all Thalia had to do was open her mouth and her words made Percy feel fourteen again.

She messed with his hair, trying to shove it all down into his face. “Not me, though.”

He swept it back up. “‘Course not.”

“I am worried about Annabeth,” she admitted and Percy straightened. “I mean, she’s trying so hard to prove to everyone that she’s fine—throwing herself into the Labyrinth, and college plans, and even making sure you’re okay. She’s going to snap at some point. At least you’re unraveling slowly. That seems easier to put back together.”

It wasn’t a completely revelatory idea to Percy. He’d had the same thoughts and fears as Annabeth went back to school and excelled in every way she had before, with disturbingly few hiccups. But he’d chalked it up to being his own failure. He was generally bad at things and Annabeth was generally good at things. So, she could cope better than he could, too. What else was new?

“You guys were in Tartarus, Percy.” Thalia’s voice cracked a little. “By the time I even found out about it, you’d already made it through. You could have—”

“Stop,” Percy said through clenched teeth. 

The tide surged, spraying water into Thalia’s face. She coughed once, then wiped her eyes. 

“Sorry,” she said. 

This really was her version of being nice, then. Normally she would have zapped him for daring to pull a stunt like that. He ducked his head between his knees and focused on control—keeping the waves at bay.

“But, see? This is what I understand.”

Percy rolled his head to the side. She gestured to the waves, then to him. 

“I mean, not this specifically,” she said, cocking her head at the water. “But you’re angry. And scared. And you show it—you lash out and run away. Maybe I’m not good at helping you, but I get it. With Annie, I don’t even know where to start.”

Percy didn’t either. The last thing he wanted to do was risk screwing with the peace that she seemed to have come to, so they never talked about any of it all. Except in numbers. 

Thalia hung her head for a moment, then arced her neck backward to stare up at the sky. “I know you’re mad about the Labyrinth.”

He rubbed his temples. A monster headache was coming on—and he should know, he’d dealt with lots of monsters. But he appreciated that she went with ‘mad’ instead of the arguably more accurate ‘spiraling’ or ‘pretty sure you’ll drop dead the moment you go inside because your heart will stop out of sheer terror’.

“Are you actually coming or were you bluffing in there?” she asked. “Nobody would blame you if you didn’t. And I mean literally not a single person. Fucking  _ Clarisse _ went to bat for you after you left.”

It was just another mind-boggling event to add to the list. Percy already felt so scrambled, they might as well pile on now before he had time to adjust.

“I’m going,” he said. “Those kids need us. And Annabeth—she’s going either way, right? I can’t let her do it alone.”

“Then you need to sleep.” Thalia struggled to her feet, brushed some sand off her legs, then reached down to help Percy up. “Solace mandated an hour-long nap for those of us who were up all night, negotiated down from five—five more hours, Percy, as if they wouldn’t be dead three times over by then.” She shook her head. “I know Nico’s all doe-eyed over that kid but he seriously needs to go.”

“I think I like Will,” Percy said.

Thalia rolled her eyes. “Of course you do.”

His feet felt like they were sinking into the ground as they walked back toward the cabins. It was an old trick that Gaia used to pull on them last summer, but this time he didn’t think it was her doing. They’d defeated her afterall. It was in his mind now. 

He only had an hour. That was no time to prepare for the Labyrinth. It had taken him a month to work up to camp. He rubbed his hands over his arms.

“Get some sleep, Percy,” Thalia said as she dropped him at the door of his cabin.

“You too.”

It was a weird thing to say in broad daylight.

“And try not to have another nervous breakdown.”

Percy stuck his tongue out at her back and pulled his door open. 

Annabeth was sitting on the edge of his bed, hitting her Yankees cap against the inside of her thigh. At her feet sat two backpacks: one Percy’s, one hers. They both looked stuffed, probably filled to the brim with clothes, nectar, ambrosia, other items that Annabeth had deemed useful for their journey.

“Thanks,” he said, nodding toward the bags.

She set her cap down and re-crossed her legs the other way. “No pressure. I just wanted it to be ready in case.”

Always the planner. But not as much as she used to be—a few years ago she probably would have hidden the backpacks until Percy confirmed he was going. They’d both rubbed off on eachother, evening out in the process. Percy’s mom said that was what made them so good together.

“Thank you,” he repeated, flopping onto the bed and rolling onto his side. “Thalia said an hour, is that right?”

She hummed in affirmation and scooted toward him, laying down once their heads were at the same height. “I should have told you about the Labyrinth. I didn’t want to give you another thing to worry about. In hindsight—well, I’m sorry.”

Percy didn’t really get it. He definitely wasn’t thrilled with the idea of Annabeth keeping stuff from him because she thought he couldn’t handle it, but he still nodded. “It’s okay. I just want to be someone you can count on, too. You know?”

Annabeth’s eyes dropped from his. They took longer to drift back up. “Percy, you are. You always have been.”

Lately he didn’t feel like it. Thalia had just confirmed it on the beach.

“What’s it like down there?” he asked. “Greater than or less than?”

She chewed on her bottom lip for a moment, searching his face. “The first time—less, like a four. But after the initial drop, it’s not bad at all. Greater than. Like a seven. You’ll be fine. I know it.”

Percy didn’t want to second guess the truth behind Annabeth’s words, but he didn’t quite believe them. He didn’t think she was lying to him or anything like that, but everything Thalia said was eating at him. Plus, if it was a seven for her, that made it at best a five for him.

“How about you?” She ran a hand along the side of his head. “Greater than or less than?”

His heart was pounding so loud in his ears that he was sure she could hear it too, but he forced himself to smile. “I’ll stick with equal to. I’m tired.”

“Then go to sleep, Seaweed Brain.” 

He snuggled closer to her, pressing his face into the same spot where he’d rested it before the meeting, between her neck and shoulder. This time, his eyes refused to stay closed, despite how heavy they were.

  
  
  
  


Everyone kept saying the Labyrinth was different. So far, it didn’t seem that way. The entrance was still in Zeus’ fist. 

Percy fiddled with the straps of his backpack, then patted his pants pocket, even though it was a redundant check. Riptide was always there.

Annabeth’s nerves seemed almost as frayed as his. She kept opening and closing the little device that Leo had made. Supposedly, it stored the route and directions, along with functioning as a tracking device. 

“I’ll lead,” she said.

Nobody protested. Thalia slung an arm over her shoulders and walked with her to the entrance.

They lowered themselves into the crevice between the two rocks one at a time. Percy’s heart jumped into his throat when Annabeth fell from sight. He ran a shaky hand through his hair just so he’d have something to do with it.

Piper slid through next. Percy wasn’t sure how that had happened. He’d thought that Jason would have finagled his way onto their mission. It would have made sense. One of the kids out there was related to him, too. But instead, Piper was here and Percy figured he should focus on getting himself through the day rather than worrying about any possible drama he’d missed at the end of the meeting yesterday. 

“Alright,” Will said. “Who’s next?”

“I’ll cover our back.” The words tripped over his tongue on the way out. They were the first ones he’d said to anyone other than Annabeth after their short nap. “I’m the oldest,” he added when they looked at him uncertainly.

“Go ahead, Will,” Nico said. 

He shrugged and disappeared. “See you in a minute.”

Maybe Thalia had a point about him, it was a pretty cursed thing to say at a time like this. A line straight out of his mom’s favorite horror movies, spoken the scene before that character gets picked off by the serial killer and never seen again.

“Percy?” Nico took a step toward him.

He wiped his forehead against his wrist. It was sticky with sweat. He tried to smile, but it felt like more of a grimace. “Yeah?”

“Are you okay?”

“Me?” It was only the two of them left. Of course he meant him. “Yes. Go for it. I’ll be right after.”

Nico looked like he wanted to disagree, but he didn’t. He turned around after positioning himself over the opening. “It really isn’t as bad as it was before. It doesn’t constantly change. I don’t know if that makes you feel any better, but…”

“Definitely.” His voice came out as more of a squeak.

Nico frowned, like he wasn’t the least bit convinced, but he still dropped out of sight.

Percy doubled over, hands clasped on his knees. He sucked in one breath, then another, until it didn’t feel like his head was filled with helium anymore.

He approached the entrance to the Labyrinth. Darkness, so black that it almost hurt to look at, filled the space between the two rocks. Percy closed his eyes and dipped one foot through, immediately pulling it back. There was nothing there. He’d fall forever, down, down, down. They’d fallen for days, floating through nothingness, unable to see. The only thing he’d had was Annabeth in his arms. Now, he had nothing. 

He shook his head. “Stop.”

It was the Labyrinth, not Tartarus. It was bad, but not that bad. He took a deep breath and plunged one foot in, leaving it there for a moment before lowering his other leg through. He started to fall and he clutched at the rocks to stop himself. 

He was dangling on the edge again. An abyss stretched below him, but he already knew what would happen. Unspeakable terror awaited. It all flashed before him—the Cocytus, Arachne, the Curses, Nyx, titans, giants, Tartarus himself. The worst was Akhlys, or at least Annabeth’s face afterward.

He scrabbled at the rocks, trying to claw his way back out. They weren’t sturdy, started to roll under his weight.

“No,” he yelped.

And he fell.

He landed almost immediately. 

His hands and knees hit the floor with a jarring  _ thud _ that he felt in every bone. 

“You did it.”

Percy blinked upward. Nico was crouched next to him, a hesitant smile on his face. 

“It’s just the Labyrinth. Nowhere worse.” He chuckled a little. “Wow, imagine saying that to our younger selves, huh?”

Even though Percy’s muscles were trembling, he tried to make them work with him, drag him to his feet. Nico offered his hand to help him, but yanked it back as soon as they touched. His fingers came away stained red. Percy realized it was his hands’ fault. They were cut up—peeling skin and dripping blood. They must have gotten scratched on the rocks.

“It’s okay. Will’ll patch those up,” Nico said, smiling encouragingly at Percy again. He grabbed his wrists instead and hauled him up. 

That should be the other way around. Percy should be the one reassuring Nico. He’d been in Tartarus, too, _alone_ , and he was younger.

“Um.” Nico twisted the skull-ring on his finger. “Percy—you’re scaring me a little bit. Can you say something?”

He nodded, then realized that still wasn’t saying anything.

“Yeah.” He cleared his throat. “Where are the others?”

“Up ahead,” Nico said, gesturing down the never-ending hallway. “I told them Grover showed up to talk to you and we’d catch up. I thought you might need a, uh, minute. I know I did when I first came down here after—you know.”

“Thanks, Nico,” Percy said.

He shrugged it off and pointed over his shoulder. “We should get moving.”

Nico had a device in his hands that looked identical to the one Annabeth had been messing with before she’d entered the Labyrinth. He explained that Leo had made two of them, in case they needed to split up. They could each lead to the other beacon, or toward the exit in Nebraska.

Percy walked with his palms extended, facing upward, in an attempt to keep from dripping his blood on the ground. He’d made that mistake before. Demigod blood on the ground was bad news. It might unlock sleeping ancient deities.

It was probably best not to think about ancient deities. 

“It does look different,” Percy noted so he’d have something else to focus on. 

Nico’s head bobbed up and down. “It is. There are still traps and monsters, but not as many. I don’t think Annabeth even understands what’s happened to it. And she’s been down here the most.”

Percy paused for a second, before continuing. “Oh.”

Nico glanced at him. “Too much?”

“No… It’s just, she didn’t even tell me about it until yesterday.”

“Yeah. I sort of figured. Based on how the whole thing went down.”

Percy couldn’t fathom why Annabeth would want to be down here all the time. It wasn’t fun when they were younger, and it certainly wasn’t fun now. Two days ago if someone had asked him, sword-tip to his heart, if Annabeth would go into the Labyrinth voluntarily, his answer would have been an emphatic no. He would have been shish kebabed.

“Hey, Percy?”

He looked up. “Yeah?”

“There’s going to be a—well, it’s a pit, on your right. It was a trap, but we disabled it so it’s not dangerous anymore. There’s plenty of room for us to walk around. But it looks a little—familiar.” Nico kept checking over his shoulder as if trying to gauge his response. “Just wanted to give you a warning.”

He didn’t understand why  _ anyone _ would subject themselves to this, ever. The air felt staler the closer they got to the pit, thick and hard to breath. It burned down his throat and into his lungs, like poison. He wasn’t sure if he was imagining it or not. 

After Percy caught his first glimpse of the pit, he screwed his eyes shut and stuck his elbow out to stay in contact with the wall on his left. He tried to focus on something his mom had told him a few years ago, when he’d still had the Curse of Achilles. He’d been even more tired then. His body was burning up too fast, everyday. And he had been angry too. He’d wanted to fight. The feeling had scared him so bad that he’d run into his mom’s room in the middle of the night like he was much younger and far less brave.

“Everything comes and goes, baby,” she’d told him as they’d sat on the edge of her bed. “Even more so for you than the rest of us. You ebb and flow like the tide.”

He coughed a little as the pit’s fumes clogged his throat. It made his hands sting and itch, too. He rubbed them on his shirt. 

“Okay,” Nico said, voice hoarse. “That’s the worst thing for a while.”

That was the sort of thing you should never say as a demigod. 

Percy opened one eye, then the other when he confirmed Nico’s assessment that the pit was behind them. 

Nico twisted something on the outside of the device. “We’ve almost caught them. If we move a little faster, we should be there in no time.”

They walked past a four-way intersection. Percy eyed the perpendicular hallway. He could hear a clock—multiple clocks, ticking on either side of them. Or maybe it was clicking.

“Nico—“

The walls, floors, ceiling started to move, crawling toward them in six-legged segments until they were surrounded.  _ Myrmekes _ —giant ants. There had to be dozens. Nico drew his sword and Percy clenched Riptide in his still bloody hand. 

He swung a few times and the ants closest to him skittered backwards. It didn’t last long. They came right back and didn’t seem as scared of the dull glow of the bronze the second time.

He took a step back, right into Nico. “What do you think?”

“There are too many.”

Percy bit back a sarcastic,  _ oh, really?  _

Nico took a deep breath and Percy had a chilling premonition of what he was about to do. He squeezed his eyes shut as the ground shuddered and crumbled around them. It was so much like the day they fell. Everything had been vibrating, pieces of Arachne’s lair falling away. And then they’d been falling, too. He’d cursed himself for the whole way down.  _ Why had they stayed on the edge of a gaping hole in the ground so long? Why hadn’t he noticed the web around Annabeth’s ankle sooner?  _

After the shaking and roaring stopped, the only sound was Nico’s heavy breathing.

Percy opened his eyes. The ants were gone. The ground around them was, too—in every direction. They were suspended in black that stretched forever, the small circular platform they stood on all that was left. His brain short-circuited. 

“Hopefully that’s all there is,” Nico said between pants. “I won’t be able to do that again any time soon.”

Percy stumbled back from the edge, landing hard on his back, but he could still see the darkness, the nothing, the falling. That was all there was.

“Percy?”

He covered his face to block it all out, but it didn’t help. They were hanging over a vacuum. The expansive nothing below was sucking the oxygen out of the Labyrinth.

“It’s okay.” Nico shook his shoulders, gently at first, then harder. “Percy? It’ll close up. Just give me a few seconds.”

The rumbling started again and Percy flinched. Nico kept talking to him, but he couldn’t make out anything more than syllables, intermixing with the sounds of the ground sealing back together.

Then it all stopped.

“Come on.” Nico tried to pull him up by his arm. “I’m going to get you back to camp, okay?”

That jolted Percy back into himself. Going back meant passing the stretch by the pit again and disappointing Annabeth and failing his little sibling. It was bad enough that Nico had seen all that. He didn’t need the rest of his friends and everyone at camp hearing about it. He shook Nico off and stood. 

“Why would we go back? Didn’t you say we were close to the others?”

Nico opened his mouth, then closed it, pressing his lips together. Thankfully, he decided against saying anything—just took the device out of his pocket and led the way.

Percy trudged after him, trying to steady his breathing. 

“There’s blood all over your face,” Nico said without looking back. “From your hands. I assume you want to get that off before Annabeth sees you.”

Percy pulled up his shirt and started scrubbing at it.

His mom’s words floated through his mind again. There’d been a lot of flowing in the last couple of years. He was ready to ebb.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed! I'm on tumblr, [peachhsocks](https://peachhsocks.tumblr.com)! Come talk to me I love friends.


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